Sunday, January 03, 2016

Inner Beauty

Sisters and brothers, do you know how to make a woman hate you for the rest of her life? Especially if you’re a man? Well, I can think of two ways. The first is to wait for that critical moment, after she has dressed and made-up herself for a party, and asks you how she looks. And then to tell her, with a straight face, that you think she has inner beauty… Another way, of course, is to announce to the whole world that she has just won the title of Miss Universe. And then, 5 seconds later, to say you’re sorry. You made a mistake. She actually came in second…

Inner beauty. And second place. Two sure-fire ways to turn a female friend into a life-long foe. But why, my dear friends? Why do you think these methods are so effective? Isn’t it because all of us–even the men–all of us, want to be beautiful. We want others to consider us attractive. Never mind that we may already be married. Or going steady. Or otherwise unavailable. There’s still a part of us that yearns for beauty.

And this is quite natural. Nothing wrong with it. Except that we often have too narrow a view of what beauty means. Whether we care to admit it or not, for many of us, beauty has to do only with external appearance. With cosmetics. As you know, in our world today, beauty is a multi-billion dollar industry. It’s got to do with the food we eat. The fashion we wear. The fragrances we spray. The lotions we apply. The exercises we perform. Even the surgical procedures we undergo. Beauty is big business. And, very often, that business remains only skin deep.

Even so, there is a part of us that yearns for something more. Something that goes deeper than the skin and the hair. The shoes and the bags. Something that endures. Even after time and gravity have robbed us of the cosmetic blessings of youth. Deep down, we all long for true inner beauty.

Isn’t this why we prayed the way we did in the opening prayer just now? We asked God to grant that we, who know you already by faith, may be brought to behold the beauty of your sublime glory. We asked God to let us see God’s beauty. Why? One reason is because to see God’s beauty is also to share in it ourselves. To become beautiful as God is beautiful. Not just cosmetically. Externally. Fleetingly. But completely. Integrally. Eternally. What does this mean? How does it happen? What must we do? These are the questions our Mass readings help us to ponder on this solemn feast of the Epiphany of the Lord.

In the first reading, God tells Jerusalem to arise and shine out, for the glory of the Lord is rising on you. The beauty of God shines upon the Holy City. The People of God. Shines in the midst of deep darkness. And it’s interesting to see what happens as a result. When God’s glory shines on Jerusalem, she is filled with God’s light. She becomes beautiful. With God’s beauty. How do we know this? Because many people are attracted to her. Not just her own sons and daughters, who have been living faraway in exile. But all the nations come to your light and kings to your dawning brightness. All nations are drawn to her beauty.

A beauty that goes far beyond external appearances. Far beyond cosmetics. The reading tells us that, when God shines upon her, Jerusalem will grow radiant, your heart throbbing and full. Unlike painted faces and powdered noses. Pedicures and manicures. The beauty that Jerusalem enjoys is not plastered onto her from without. It radiates from within. From the fullness of her heart.

In the first reading, God promises to make Jerusalem breathtakingly beautiful. With a beauty radiating from deep within. A beauty that belongs not to her. But to God. It is God’s beauty. God’s glory. Shining upon her. Within her. Through her. So that she might attract all nations to herself. And, through her, to God. What she has to do is to arise. To shine out.

And, when she does this, she helps not just herself. But everyone else as well. Especially those who do not know God. Attracted to her inner beauty, these people will themselves be made beautiful. They themselves become attractive. Drawing even more people to God. And so the cycle continues. Beauty begets beauty begets beauty… All that we need to do is to keep arising. To keep shining out. In the light and in the beauty of God. But what does this mean? And are there any obstacles?

We find answers to these questions in the gospel. Where the promise made in the first reading is fulfilled. In the newborn baby Jesus, the beauty of the God’s glory shines upon our world. And it attracts wise men. Who come to Jerusalem from the east. Why do they come? If not because they are drawn by beauty? Not just the beauty of a star, shining in the night sky. But also the beauty of what the star signifies. The beauty of God’s glory shining upon a world engulfed in darkness. The beauty of God’s love illuminating the night of selfishness and sin. A love so strong that it willingly enters our world as a poor defenceless baby.

Foreigners though they are, the wise men see the light for what it is. They arise. And they shine out. In contrast, it is those who should know better who resist the light. Even though King Herod and the chief priests and scribes of Judaea know very well that God’s beauty has come. They refuse to arise. They refuse to shine. Herod even wants to have the child killed. To snuff out the light. Why? Why is the king and his priests so allergic to true inner beauty? Isn’t it because they are more concerned with keeping up appearances? With the preservation of oppressive political power. And of empty religious rituals. Clinging tightly to the cosmetics of life, they fail to shine out with the beauty of God.

They fail to do what, in the second reading, Paul says he is called to do. I have been entrusted by God with the grace he meant for you… It means that pagans now share the same inheritance… the same promise has been made to them… What is this grace? This inheritance? This promise? Isn’t it the same promise made in the first reading? And fulfilled in the gospel? The promise of light. Of glory. Of true inner beauty. The promise entrusted to us. For us to share with the rest of the world.

And isn’t this, my dear friends, the challenge that the Epiphany presents to us today? In Christ, the light of God’s beauty is already shining upon us. Among us. Within us. What we have to do is to keep arising. And to keep shining out. To let go of mere cosmetics. In order to cling to Christ. To loosen our grip on the things that pass away. In order to cling to the One who truly endures. The One who is Beauty ever ancient and ever new.

I’m reminded of these words from an old praise song, sung by The Maranatha! Singers:

In your time, in your time.

You make all things beautiful in your time.

Lord, my life to you I bring.

May each song I have to sing,

Be to you a lovely thing in your time.

Sisters and brothers, what must we do to allow God to continue making of us and of our world something truly beautiful today?

No comments:

Post a Comment

Breaking News: Ordinary Time

Apart from those seasons having their own distinctive character, thirty-three or thirty-four weeks remain in the yearly cycle that do not celebrate a specific aspect of the mystery of Christ. Rather, especially on the Sundays, they are devoted to the mystery of Christ in all its aspects. This period is known as Ordinary Time. Ordinary Time begins on Monday after the Sunday following 6 January and continues until Tuesday before Ash Wednesday inclusive. It begins again on Monday after Pentecost and ends before Evening Prayer I of the First Sunday of Advent. This is also the reason for the series of liturgical texts found in both the Roman Missal and The Liturgy of the Hours (Vol. III - IV), for Sundays and weekdays in this season.–General Norms for the Liturgical Year and Calendar, 43-44

Power in the Breaking

The Road to Emmaus

Then they said to one another, 'Did not our hearts burn within us as he... explained the scriptures to us?' They set out that instant and returned to Jerusalem... Then they told their story of... how they had recognised him in the breaking of bread. - Luke 24:32-35 (NJB)

Words at liturgy are spoken not simply or primarily for the sake of information. Words are proclaimed at liturgy so that God can do something among us for our sakes and our salvation... The power of the proclaimed word is that it causes something to occur among us. Every time we proclaim the scriptures at liturgy "they are fulfilled in [our] hearing."- Kevin W. Irwin, Models of the Eucharist

When a person is touched by the Word obedience is born, that is a listening that changes life.- Pope John Paul II, Orientale Lumen #10

(T)he meeting between God and people in liturgy may - and probably should - provoke discomfort. Rituals behave - as Jesus did in his ministry - parabolically, and hence worship is not a self-congratulatory exercise where we showcase "all the great stuff we're doing." The point of our coming together in prayer is not congratulation and comfort but challenge and change. Even when we arrive at the church doors aglow with prosperity and success, we enter only by "acknowledging our failures and asking the Lord for pardon and strength" (Order of Mass, Penitential Rite). We become a community of the forgiven. And when we mourn and lament our loss, at the funeral of a loved one, we still accept the invitation to come before God "with praise and thanksgiving" (Eucharistic Prayer I), and to acknowledge that "all your actions show your mercy and love" (Eucharistic Prayer IV).- Nathan D. Mitchell, Meeting Mystery

In the liturgy, properly celebrated, divisions along lines of sex, age, race or wealth are overcome. In the liturgy, properly celebrated, we discover the sacramentality of the material universe. In the liturgy, properly celebrated, we learn the ceremonies of respect both for one another and for the creation, that allow us to see in people and in material goods, 'fruit of the earth and the work of human hands,' sacraments of that new order which we call the justice of the kingdom of God.- John J. Egan, quoted in Keith F. Pecklers, SJ, Worship: A Primer in Christian Ritual

The future of liturgy is the future of the Church.... Celebrating the liturgy is itself the primordial source of renewal in the Church. We learn the liturgy by celebrating it. The more we succeed in celebrating the liturgy, the more we'll live the Christian life fully and the more we'll succeed in transforming the Church... The great ideals of the Church are in crisis today in part because there's a crisis in the liturgy. The great ideals of ecumenism, of internal reform of the Church, are all connected. The crisis of the liturgy places in crisis these other great values, because the (Second Vatican) Council wanted to confront these challenges of the mission of the Church, of reform, of dialogue with the world, by beginning with the liturgy. If the liturgy is the source and summit, then we foster in the liturgy the kind of life we need to meet these great goals. If these great movements of the Church are in difficulty today, we have to look to the difficulty in the liturgy.

Body for the Breaking

(cc Atilla1000)

(This) is about getting away from a view of the Church that is very seductive and very damaging - and very popular. This is the view that the Church is essentially a lot of people who have something in common called Christian faith and get together to share it with each other and communicate it to other people 'outside'. It looks a harmless enough view at first, but it is a good way from what the New Testament encourages us to think about the Church - which is that the Church is first of all a kind of space cleared by God through Jesus in which people may become what God made them to be (God's sons and daughters), and that what we have to do about the Church is not first to organise it as a society but to inhabit it as a climate or a landscape. It is a place where we can see properly - God, God's creation, ourselves. It is a place or dimension in the universe that is in some way growing towards being the universe itself in restored relation to God. It is a place we are invited to enter, the place occupied by Christ, who is himself the climate and atmosphere of a renewed universe.... But somehow or other, we all have to undergo a fairly fundamental conversion from seeing revealed truth as a possession to be guarded to seeing it as a place to inhabit; not one bit of territory that needs protection, but the whole world renewed. We shall not proclaim Christ effectively if we are constantly reverting to what makes us anxious rather than what makes us grateful. All I have said so far implies that the priest's task is centrally and essentially to proclaim that world renewed - in personal care, in public teaching, in sacramental action. And the point of such proclamation is to tell the assembly of believers who they are in God's presence, what it is to be involved with and in the priestly act of Jesus Christ and what that means in the daily interactions of human life in terms of reconciliation, judgement, risk and gift...- Rowan Williams, The Christian Priest Today (Friday 28 May 2004)

Broken Elsewhere

Jesuit Corner

Our Identity:What is it to be a Jesuit? It is to know that one is a sinner, yet called to be a companion of Jesus as Ignatius was...(General Congregation 32, Decree 2, #1)

Our Mission:Ours is a service of faith and of the radical implications of faith in a world where it is becoming easier to settle for something less than faith and less than justice. We recognize, along with many of our contemporaries, that without faith, without the eye of love, the human world seems too evil for God to be good, for the good God to exist. But faith recognizes that God is acting, through Christ's love and the power of the Holy Spirit, to destroy the structures of sin which afflict the bodies and hearts of his children. Our Jesuit mission touches something fundamental in the human heart: the desire to find God in a world scarred by sin, and then to live by his Gospel in all its implications... We can now say explicitly that our mission of the service of faith and the promotion of justice must be broadened to include, as integral dimensions, proclamation of the Gospel, (inter-religious) dialogue, and the evangelization of culture. They belong together with the service of faith... because they arise out of an attentiveness to what the Risen Christ is doing as he leads the world to the fullness of God's Kingdom...(General Congregation 34, Decree 2, # 11, 20)

Jesuit Spirituality:(W)e can describe Jesuit spirituality by a set of life-giving and creative tensions. Jesuits are to be men of prayer for whom spiritual means are primary, yet they are asked to use all the natural means at their disposal for their apostolic work. They are to be disciplined men purified of inordinate attachment to worldly values, yet actively engaged in the world; they are, indeed, expected to find God in their activity. They are to be distinguished by their poverty, yet able to carry out their apostolic activities among the wealthy as well as among the poor. Jesuits are to be chaste and to be known as chaste, but are expected to be warm and loving companions at home and on the road, that is outside of cloister. They are to be men of passion, intelligence, initiative and creativity, yet responsive in obedience to superiors. They are to be committed to the people and institutions with which they are involved, yet able to move quickly to whatever place superiors send them. They are expected to be men who believe that God's Spirit communicates directly with individuals, including themselves, and thus who are discerning regarding the movements of their hearts, yet also to be men distinguished by disciplined obedience and fidelity to the institutional church... Jesuit spirituality functions best when these tensions are alive and clearly felt, that is, when Jesuits experience in themselves the pulls of both sides of each polarity. Jesuits are at their best, for example, when they are attracted to spending much time in prayer and have to control that attraction for the sake of their apostolic activity, or when Jesuit theologians experience the tension of being faithful Roman Catholics and of searching for new ways to express the truths of faith in a different age and culture...(Barry & Doherty, Contemplatives in Action: The Jesuit Way)

Quotable Quotes:

As long as we remain in the polarization of conservatives and progressives, of left and right, we will paralyze and block apostolic freedom and response. The Spirit is pushing us forward on the way to him who makes all things new, who will build up with us a new earth and a new heaven, the city of God. Instead of looking suspiciously at one another, let us look together to Christ.- Peter Hans Kolvenbach, SJ

In the document in which we considered our charism, we say that in looking at Jesus we understand who we ought to be. "Remaining" in him. We all know that it is not through guidelines or directives written for others that the Church and the Society will change. They will change if we know how to become new persons.... The Gospel takes us still further. It tells us that everything we have done is for mission.... At the very heart of the sending is the "remaining.".... We are sent because we have entered into Christ and it is Christ who has sent us. The mission has its source... in our encounter with God, but it ends in others. It begins with Christ and it ends with others -- in their joys, in their hopes, in their sufferings...- Adolfo Nicolas, SJ

From General Congregation 36

It is our union with one another in Christ that testifies to the Good News more powerfully than our competences and abilities.... In our individualistic and competitive age, we should remember that the community plays a very special role since it is a privileged place of apostolic discernment.... The Jesuit community is a concrete space in which we live as friends in the Lord. This life together is always at the service of mission, but because these fraternal bonds proclaim the Gospel, it is itself a mission. –Companions in a Mission of Reconciliation and Justice (CMRJ), nn. 7-9.

With the poor, we can learn what hope and courage mean.... In our communities and apostolates, we hear the call to rediscover hospitality to strangers, to the young, to the poor, and to those who are persecuted. Christ himself teaches us this hospitality. –CMRJ, nn. 15-16.

At the heart of Ignatian spirituality is the transforming encounter with the mercy of God in Christ that moves us to a generous personal response. The experience of the merciful gaze of God on our weakness and sinfulness humbles us and fills us with gratitude, helping us to become compassionate ministers to all.... For us Jesuits, compassion is action, an action discerned together. Yet we know that there is no authentic familiarity with God if we do not allow ourselves to be moved to compassion and action by an encounter with the Christ who is revealed in the suffering, vulnerable faces of people, indeed in the suffering of creation. –CMRJ, nn. 19-20.

(T)he Society must respond more decisively to the Church’s call for a new evangelization, giving special emphasis to ministry to and with the young and with families.... A special gift Jesuits and the Ignatian family have to offer to the Church and her mission of evangelization is Ignatian spirituality, which facilitates the experience of God and can therefore greatly help the process of personal and communal conversion. –CMRJ, nn. 22-23.

In many societies, there is an increased level of conflict and polarization, which often gives rise to violence that is all the more appalling because it is motivated and justified by distorted religious convictions. In such situations, Jesuits, along with all who seek the common good, are called to contribute from their religious-spiritual traditions towards the building of peace, on local and global levels. –CMRJ, n. 28.

Pope Francis has emphasized the fundamental connection between the environmental crisis and the social crisis in which we live today. Poverty, social exclusion, and marginalization are linked with environmental degradation. These are not separate crises but one crisis that is a symptom of something much deeper: the flawed way societies and economies are organised. The current economic system with its predatory orientation discards natural resources as well as people. For this reason, Pope Francis insists that the only adequate solution must be a radical one. The direction of development must be altered if it is to be sustainable. We Jesuits are called to help heal a broken world, promoting a new way of producing and consuming, which puts God’s creation at the center.... The multifaceted challenge of caring for our common home calls for a multifaceted response from the Society. We begin by changing our personal and community lifestyles, adopting behaviour coherent with our desire for reconciliation with creation. – CMRJ, nn. 29-30

By sending us to 'those physical and spiritual places which others do not or have difficulty reaching,' the Pope entrusts to us the task to 'build bridges of understanding and dialogue,' according to the best tradition of the Society, in the diversity of its ministries.- Decree With Renewed Fervor and Dynamism, n. 6

To be missioned to this work 'at the New Frontiers of our times' always requires that one also be rooted at the very heart of the Church. This tension, specific to the Ignatian charism, opens the way to true creative fidelity.- Decree With Renewed Fervor and Dynamism, n. 13

In every mission that we carry out, we seek only to be where (Christ) sends us. The grace we receive as Jesuits is to be and to go with him, looking on the world with his eyes, loving it with his heart and entering into its depths with his unending compassion.- Decree on Identity, n. 15

For ultimately, there is no reality that is only profane for those who know how to look. We must communicate this look and provide a pedagogy inspired by the Spiritual Exercises, that carries people - especially the young - into it.- Decree on Identity, n. 10

Our ministries of proclamation of the Word and the celebration of the Life of Christ in the sacraments continue to be fundamental for our mission and our lives together as Jesuits.- Decree on Mission, n. 19

The complexity of the problems we face and the richness of the opportunities offered demand that we engage in building bridges between rich and poor and establishing advocacy links of mutual support between those who hold political power and those who find it difficult to voice their interests. Our intellectual apostolate provides an inestimable help in setting up these bridges, offering us new ways of understanding in depth the mechanism and links among our present problems.- Decree on Mission, n. 28

Jesuit community is not just for mission, it is itself mission.- Decree on Mission, n. 41

In this global context it is important to highlight the extraordinary potential represented by our character as an international and multicultural body. Acting consistently with this character can not only enhance the apostolic effectiveness of our work but in a fragmented and divided world it can witness to the reconciliation in solidarity of all the children of God.- Decree on Mission, n. 43

Faith in Jesus Christ teaches us that self-realization comes from self-giving and that freedom is not so much the power to choose as the power to order our choices toward love. At the same time, love for Jesus Christ and the desire to follow him call us to trusting commitment. Commitment to the Word Incarnate cannot be separated from commitment to the concrete manifestations of the Word that are at the center of our lives, the Church and the Society which exists to serve the Church.- Decree on Obedience, n. 19